To:A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV

Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany II.

      Sent from Berne to Stockholm.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages175-176.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

November 28, 1914

DearFriend,

Ihave had a telegram from
Branting[1]today that “the
newspapersconfirmthe arrest of five
deputies”.[2]I fear
that now we cannot doubt the fact of the arrest.

Thisis terrible. The government has evidently decided to
have its revenge on the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
group, and will stick at nothing. We must be ready for
the very worst: falsification of documents, forgeries, planting
of “evidence”, false witness, trial behind closed doors,
etc., etc.

Ithink that without such methods the government would
not succeed in getting a sentence.

Couldyou not try to find out the names of the six who
have been arrested?

IsK.  all right?

Atall events, the work of our Party has now become
100 times more difficult. And still we shall carry it on!Pravdahas trained up thousands of class-conscious workers
out of whom, in spite of all difficulties, a new collective of
leaders—the Russian C.C. of the Party—will be formed.
It is now particularly important that you should remain in
Stockholm (ornearStockholm), and put all your energy
into establishing contacts with Petersburg. (Write whether
you have received any money as a loan: in my last letter
I put in a little note for you about this. If you have not
had any and cannot get any, we shall probably be able
to send you something; write in as much detail as possible.)

InZurich a newspaperOtklikiis promised (probably the
liquidators+Trotsky) in December. In Paris a daily S.R.Mysl (arch-philistinephrase-making, playing at “

Leftism”)[3]has begun to appear. An abundance of papers,
phrases from the intelligentsia, today r-r-revolutionary,
tomorrow...? (tomorrow they willmake peacewith Kautsky,
Plekhanov, the liquidationist “patriotic-chauvinist–
opportunist intelligentsia” in Russia)....

Amongtheworkingclass in Russia they never had
anything, and have nothing. You cannot trust them in the
slightest.

Ishake you warmly by the hand, and wish youcourage.
Times are difficult, but ... we shall get through!

Yours,Lenin

[1]Branting,Karl Hjalmar(1860–1925)—leader of the
Social-Democratic Party of Sweden, and one of the leaders of the Second
International. He adopted opportunist positions.

[2]FiveBolshevik deputies in the R.S.D.L.P. group in the Fourth Duma were
denounced by an informer and arrested on November 5 (18), 1914, the day
after the Bolsheviks’ conference on the war. The tsarist government accused
the Bolshevik deputies of “high treason”, and all the deputies were
sentenced to deprivation of their rights and exile to Eastern Siberia.

[3]TheMensheviks’ Organising Committee declared its intention of
publishing its own paperOtkliki(Echoes), but the project was
never realised.

Mysl(Thought)—daily paper of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Edited by M. Natanson and V. Chernov, it appeared in Paris from November
1914 to March 1915, when it was closed down by the French Government.